tsenecal wrote:I just looked at Caswell's website and he is now charging $99 for the sombra labs receiver. two weeks ago he was selling them for $65... i'll let him explain that.

That's rather arrogant of you Mr Senecal. But thanks for bringing it to my attention. In view of the fact that these items are in high demand by the submarine fraternity, and I have a few left, I amended the price again.They are now $109, but a special deal for you Tim $250

I can not argue about the price because I did not have (I do not know how many) thousands of dollars to buy up the remaining stock like Mike did and leave that kind of money on a shelf waiting until it is sold. If $99 is too much than do not buy it. He is entitled to a profit and if I do not like his profit margin, buy somewhere else, right? I mean there is other receivers out there, aren't there?

If you can cut, drill, saw, hit things and swear a lot, you're well on the way to building a working model sub.

If you look around just about everything is going through the roof. A single gallon of the laminating resin I use rose from $89.00 to $136.00 in a single month! Have you seen the price increases in tow carbon?!? 6mil tow carbon has tripled in price in just the last 90 days. Yellow metal raw material has doubled in price in the last year, and it goes on and on and on....I called my resin supplier and he explained that the price increase was delayed as long as possible in passing to the consumer, but the price of everything world wide is going through the roof. Not to get political here, but the problem lies with the monetary policies of our government and countries that we trade with. The continual printing of money devalues the currency making the price of everything go up. Its really not the price of the goods we are buying that is going up, it is the value of the currency we are trading with is going down at a very rapid pace. Get used to it. It is not likely to change for several years! Lets be fair to our vendors here. The hobby market has been in the tank for years. I am sure the vendors are not out to gouge the remaining patrons in the market.

40mhz kit is getting difficult to find here in the UK, as the big Japanese companies have stopped production, and most model shops have now exhausted there back stock. There are a lot more people using 40mhz in the world than 75mhz, which is pretty much exclusive to the States, so I would say you have a problem.

But there's an opportunity for a smaller outfit to capitalize on this by producing a range of receivers for our use. There are designs out there already which can be adapted. It won't be as convenient as it was before, where you could hop along to the nearest model shop and pick up a set. Many electronics in our boats are exclusive to our vessels, and the radio will probably become one of them.

Transmitters are another issue, as they come under stricter guidelines.

Probably the only use of 40 or 75 MHZ is going to end up being for submarines only. It makes sense that 2.4HGZ is the way to go especially with the band sharing technologies. Surface vehicles can also move into the 2.4GHZ area. The people that have to invest in the production of receivers that can be used underwater are the sub manufacturers and sub driver component manufacturers. They have the most to lose. People like Herr Engel must make sure that there is a supply of receivers or he might just as well close up shop. And BTW, not only for the European frequencies but for the US also. With the scope of his operation and Caswells as well as others, either come up with a solution or go out of business. I don't know how big the submarine following is but it seems big enough for the manufacturers to come up with the solution. For the moment we will just have to bite the bullet and buy the receivers however we can.